What happens when a cell in your motorcycle battery dies?

Maybe blue is an unlucky color for me. This is the second tow with this bike.

If you are out and about having a nice motorcycle ride on one of the few nice days we have had this summer your motorcycle refuses to start. We were topping off the tank, after having made multiple stops about town, when the bike would not restart.

Not restarting sounds a bit too nice to describe what happened. When I hit the starter button we got one grunt and then nothing. My troubleshooting thoughts went right to the charging system. Did we drain the battery because the bike was not charging the battery as we rode?

After getting the bike towed to the dealership turns out that the battery had a dead cell and could not be charged. Something about how the newer batteries worked of which I am not knowledgeable. Anyway…. Got the motorcycle back after a few days and dollars everything seems to work again. Luckily the towing was covered by the Harley Owners Group membership.